DETROIT -- Before the Detroit Tigers' first home playoff game this season, a reporter pressed for answers to questions about how a baseball team's fortunes might help lift America's most troubled city out of its bankrupt problems.

Just like the many short-circuited Tigers playoff runs of recent years, the story of the baseball team sparking a Detroit recovery is a worn-out tale.

All it does now is serve as raw reminder of how many recent misses there have been, of the several high-scoring Tigers teams that skid offensively in postseason, of botched plays in the field by pitchers, of lost footing on fly balls, and of the vacant promise of 2006, 2012, and every year in between.

The truth, with the Tigers facing an elimination game Tuesday against the Oakland Athletics after losing 6-3 Monday at Comerica Park and falling behind 2-1 in the best-of-five American League Division Series, is that the tale has grown weary of Detroit teams delivering dominant regular seasons and AL Central titles, then flopping.

Dave Dombrowski, the general manager, builds daunting rosters.

Mike Ilitch, the owner, gives him the money to do it.

Jim Leyland, the manager, steers the team to October.

There, it has fallen apart.

And with one more loss, 2013 becomes just another year when Tigers fans start to look at players like Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Justin Verlander and wonder whether this talent trove ever will win a World Series together.

The biggest problem this time is the Tigers have hit home runs in a grand total of one inning over their last nine games, a power outage like none they suffered all season, though Cabrera emphasized baby steps in the endeavor to score more.

"First," he said, "we've got to get on base."

Yes, that would be a start.

There's still plenty of fighting spirit, despite a dominant pitching rotation faltering, and despite an offense that made the scoreboard ding like a pinball machine all season suddenly going silent.

That was evidenced in the ninth inning of Monday's Game 3, in what may be the defining moment of this series if the Tigers don't win the next two games.

Victor Martinez fouled off a pitch and stared at pitcher Grant Balfour, who stared back.

What ensued was a child's game of "Don't You Stare at Me," followed by what should have been a little reminder about "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones." Instead, Balfour cursed Martinez for staring and Martinez cursed back. Even the most amateur lip readers know the exact verbiage.

"I don't know if you can read lips but, hey, I've got kids," Balfour said when asked what he yelled at Martinez.

Balfour should have kept his yap shut and gone back to the mound after the foul ball. He didn't. And once the pitcher started up, Martinez, playing for a frustrated team, was bound to answer.

"Don't try to be a Superman on the mound," Martinez said. "I don't take it. That's it, simple as that."

So everyone puffed out chests and threw back shoulders as if to go all beast mode on each other, and players and coaches from each team congregated on and around the infield. But all the moves were feints, nothing but bluffs, just like the bullpen members joining the bench-clearing fray after they were certain it was defused.

And just like the ruse of the Tigers' offensive prowess in the regular season translating to postseason. The fourth-inning thaw, when the Tigers scored three runs, looked promising. But they never advanced another runner beyond first base.

The series reduces to a familiar October theme now, and the Tigers needn't concern themselves with an underfunded city pension, bloated union contracts, a single-industry economy that faltered when the single industry did, or urban flight.

They have just two games left to get it right in this series.

If they want to boost the region's spirits, there's only one way.

"We know where we're at," Cabrera said. "We've got to be ready to play tomorrow, first through ninth, and try to force Game 5."